Atticus

Atticus asking me a riddle this morning:

“Why did the girl throw a stick of butter out the window?”

Me:”Hmm, I don’t know…Why?”

“Because she wanted to see a butter fly!”

(then, after a pause while looking as if he felt the story needed a little something more, and with a serious face:)

“She was a funny-looking sort of girl.”

five little pumpkins from barretthall on Vimeo.

Atticus’ preschool class performs last Monday - a great birthday treat for ol’ Dad.

backup site if above not working: dailymotion

Atty buckles down intently and carefully to the task at hand - evening, Easter, 2006.

“ Say, Atticus, should we go inside and get some milk and some lunch before we take our nap?

No. Outside. “

…which is what it was here, more than a blizzard — I mean, it was a “blizzard”, but it wasn’t a Blizzard, not for Boston. We didn’t even top 20 inches - c’mon!

–more found here–

trying out video using dailymotion

link to whole set

One of the key distinctions between primates and lower animals is that we have opposable thumbs.

Havng now endured a few days of trying to get a very small primate’s opposable thumbs into mittens, I no longer necessarily see this as being as big an advantage as I once did.

Jumping on the bed video, though thankfully, w/ 4 parents around, no bumping of heads.

aka, from September, when our camera w/ videos was still barely alive:

big green balloon fun

another Chomo pursuit in the backyard

As the title suggests, there haven’t been any pictures lately, but that may be just as well. There was a 5 day stretch during which Atty often couldn’t keep down any food or much drink. After the 3rd day, and once he really started to seem thinner, we called the doc, who told us to limit his intake to just a teaspoonful at a time. This seemed to help, though it led to some pitiful and heartrending time for Beck and me, since Atticus would point or trot to the kitchen while using his hand signals for wanting to eat or drink all day long.

He got thru most of that day fine and didn’t throw up again until the next, on the ride home after an apple-picking excursion, but then was OK that evening. Toddler and I saw the doctor the next day, though, because Atty was starting to seem listless and not acting like himself (and because our doctor’s office seems really responsive and let us come in that same morning). Doctor C. said he likely had just had a stomach bug, but that he also had mild ear infections in both ears, so she prescribed an antibiotic; he had lost about 1.5 lbs. since his last visit.

The story ends almost entirely well: on that doctor visit day and the next, he didn’t throw up at all… except when we gave hm his medicine, which led to tremendous, er, episodes both times we gave it to him, even after we returned to the pharmacy to get it flavored — exceedingly frustrating.

We’ve since laid off the antibiotics for a few days so he could get some weight back on (and I think he has, after a couple of days of relative feasting), and the smell in various rooms has been mostly banished. In the middle of the goings-on, I sat down to the computer once and thought about posting a screen capture of what I saw: the google search bar where B had recently typed in “vomit toddler,” but decided against it, not wishing to be alarmist to readers who might not see the humor *

*not that we parents necessarily did either, at the time

…such as they are

Some of the words Atty has (that at least we can understand):
downstairs (upon waking up) (”d’stairs”)
bears (referring to the bears of various sorts with whom he shares his crib)
banana (used to be”‘nana” and arguably first word - now, somehow, “lala!”)
kitty (”keeee”)
Sarah (”Sssar”, plus a big smile)
Momma, Dada
cheese
mmmmilk
Blue’s Clues (favorite show)(”Boo’s Coos”)
woom woom (for trucks)

Beck, others?

Anyway, a fun moment for Dad the other day when I couldn’t tell if he was ready for his nap or not: he walked over to the stairs that lead up to his room, pointed, and said “ups-bears” — as clear a communication as I could hope for.

still, the biting has mercifully ceased; so, essentially a win for TK

I promised myself I wouldn’t try to make every Atty post a polished opus (or, more often, nothing). Thus, my first attempt.

These days, the 22nd day of the month comes and it’s a tossup whether or not we’ll remember if it’s birthday day - though we’ll know next month, since we relish the chance to use the easier and more elegant “he’s a year and a half”.

Milestones this week:

-first timeout, after @ would NOT leave the rolling dog food container alone, even after several admonishments; I picked him up and carried him from the kitchen into the living room, placed him on the couch, and left to help clean up the kibble. Only after he and his sad face wandered back in for a hug did we realize he’d sat there for about a minute. So, we’ll use the couch as penalty box again next time and see how it goes (e.g., 1 minute for unnecessary roughness or high sticking on kitty)

-first cleaning of crayon marks from wall. Dad so foolishly thought, for about 5 seconds, that it might be okay to color on the side of our 1 white, easy-to-clean bookcase, but the situation quickly escalated out of control. Now we’re back to Only Paper. Still, seeing the stray coloring pop up around the house really adds to the toddler house feel.

Things Atty loves now:

-Seeing a picture or video image of something and then scurrying to get a real life example, like when we watch our Bear Country USA video clip of the grizzly bear and he runs to drag over and hug Big Bear. Or, in the sadder example, when he sees a picture of Beckie in the middle of the school day, pooks out his lower lip, and goes to get some representative of Momma, such as the red raincoat of hers he brought into the den and placed near the picture.

(I secretly suspect that reports of such behavior do not make B entirely sad)